


Inheritance

by mistr3ssquickly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Genre: Alcohol, Charles Dickens is rolling in his grave, Corellian ale sounds like fun, Established Relationship, Han Solo has a bad night, M/M, Sorry Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5874031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistr3ssquickly/pseuds/mistr3ssquickly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han offers to teach Luke to drink after they’re spared their role as dinner for a tribe of creatures that put Chewie’s worst moods to shame, offers it mostly as a joke, just to see Luke blush. He makes good on his offer some days later, mostly because he’s bored and figures there’ll be some entertainment value, at least, to seeing the self-assured Jedi knight wannabe who took the place of the starry-eyed backwater brat Luke used to be, stumbling drunk into a raucous hangover he isn’t likely to forget anytime soon.</p><p> </p><p>Or: Han Solo has one very long night after teaching Luke to drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inheritance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreshBrains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/gifts).



**Inheritance**

Han offers to teach Luke to drink after they’re spared their role as dinner for a tribe of creatures that put Chewie’s worst moods to shame, offers it mostly as a joke, just to see Luke blush. He makes good on his offer some days later, mostly because he’s bored and figures there’ll be _some_ entertainment value, at least, to seeing the self-assured Jedi knight wannabe who took the place of the starry-eyed backwater brat Luke used to be, stumbling drunk into a raucous hangover he isn’t likely to forget anytime soon. Besides, he’s not had anyone around worth drinking with for longer than he cares to admit or think about too long, can’t afford the tab he’d have to rack up in order to get Chewie drunk, the Wookiee’s ability to metabolize poisons unfairly superior to Han’s own, and since Lando’s still on Han’s list of People I Don’t Know If I Can Trust and Leia’s growing tired of his company at a rapid pace, Luke’s the next best thing.

So he invites Luke to join him on the _Falcon_ one evening when there’s nothing to do but ignore the pressure of reality by getting blind drunk or cave under the pressure and spend a fruitless, frustrating night guessing at the Imperials’ next move. He gives Leia the slanted sort of grin that makes her narrow her eyes at him in completely justifiable suspicion when she sees him sidling up to her brother, ill-intention probably radiating off of him like a solar flare. He slings his arm around Luke’s shoulders the minute Leia’s got her back turned, launching into a rambling history that’s probably at least kind of partially true about the Corellian ale he’s got on board and how, exactly, that case of Corellian ale came to _be_ on board his ship, the parts of the story he’s exaggerating or making up altogether funny enough to get a quiet laugh or three out of Luke as they walk up the gangplank together.

Luke is, as Han expected he would be, a lightweight. He is _not,_ however, the entertaining drunk Han had hoped to have a front row seat to enjoy. He finishes his first drink in relative silence while Han walks him through a tutorial hand of sabacc. Finishes his second while trying to play on his own, losing miserably by the time Han’s pouring him a third. By the time that’s gone, Luke’s curled up on his side in Han’s bunk, blinking at the cards Han’s dealt him like they’re written in a language he can’t comprehend, his eyes crossing and closing for good only minutes later, the cards slipping from his fingers to fall with a hush across the floor.

Ridiculous.

He’s put on some good muscle over the years in addition to growing taller, nearly as tall as Han, which means he’s heavier than Han’s expecting when he tries to move Luke out of his bed, thinking to carry him back to base and dump him in his own bed to sleep off the alcohol. He considers, briefly, calling on Chewie to come help him, but the thought of combining a disapproving Wookiee’s lecture with the buzz of alcohol steadily declining into the comfortable quiet of an early bedtime sits in his throat like heartburn, puts a frown on his face that doesn’t at all fit with the night of drinking and telling stories and playing cards and messing around with Luke like in the old days Han thought he’d set himself up to enjoy. He pulls Luke’s boots off, instead, unclips the lightsaber from Luke’s belt. Strips down to pants and undershirt and budges Luke over enough to join him on the narrow bunk, grumbling as he lies down, moving Luke over just a little bit more with a strategic push of his butt, his position more or less comfortable enough for him to sleep.

Behind him, Luke sighs and shifts, cuddling up against Han’s back. Han rolls his eyes and lets it be, dropping to sleep without trouble.

0101010101010

He dreams.

There’s a rattle at the door, a brush of fabric against the floor. A dream, he knows, because Ben Kenobi is standing before him, looking down at the bunk Han shares with Luke, an unreadable expression on his face, which is fine except that Ben Kenobi is _dead._ Han watched him die. Cut down with a look of serenity on his face, arms raised and eyes closed in full, calm acceptance of his fate, cutting Luke free to escape on the _Falcon._ Han isn’t a big fan of dying, but as far as deaths go, even he has to admit that Kenobi chose a pretty badass way to go.

He rubs grit from one of his eyes as Kenobi considers him, unblinking. Props his chin up on his forearm, meeting Kenobi’s gaze. “You need something, old man?” he says, keeping his voice low. Dream or no dream, Luke’s asleep behind him. Probably needs the rest, after the events of the past week.

“Much,” Kenobi says.

Cryptic as ever. “Can you sit?” Han says.

“I can.”

Han yawns. “Do it, then,” he says.

Kenobi complies, moving across the room and settling in the chair Han sat in while teaching Luke sabacc, strangely corporeal for a dead guy. Keeps his gaze fixed on Han, his silence settling like a physical presence over the room, making Han’s skin crawl.

“You don’t believe in me,” he says, just as Han’s thinking about pinching himself, ready for the dream to be over and let him get back to sleeping off his drink.

“Nope,” Han says.

“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”

Han shrugs. “Dunno.”

“Why doubt your feelings?” Kenobi says.

Cryptic as ever. “I believe in you as a dream,” Han compromises.

“That will suffice,” Kenobi says. “You must be wondering why I have come to you as I have.”

Too much good Corellian ale. Too much stress, lying dormant after battle. Too much uncertainty peppering the future, most of it rising from the man sleeping beside him, quiet calm wrapped around swirling enigma. “Not really,” Han says. “I ain’t one to question what my brain wants to do while I’m asleep.”

“Ahh, but you are not asleep,” Kenobi says. “You have woken, and I am speaking to you through the Force.”

“Uh- _huh.”_

Kenobi fixes him with the paternalistic sort of smile that Han dislikes very much. “Young Skywalker has shared much with you,” he says. “Pain. Love. Fear. Now he shares with you his trust.”

Han snorts. “I got Luke drunk and he passed out in my bed,” he says. “Ain’t quite as pretty as you’d like it to be, old man. Sorry.”

“You will have three visitors, this night,” Kenobi continues, as if Han hadn’t spoken. “Each separately. Each in his own time. Look to see no more, after the third; and look, that for your own sake, and for Luke’s, you remember what has passed between us.”

Sleep tugs at the corners of Han’s eyes. He yawns. “Don’t s’pose I could have them all at once, could I?” he says. “You missed a bit, but lately things’ve been --”

A blink and Kenobi is gone. Han frowns into the darkness where he’d been, then rolls onto his back, Luke spilling across him in a tangle of limbs and quiet snoring, and drifts back to sleep.

0101010101010

He’s been out what feels like a bare minute when a noise wakes him, footsteps heavy on the metal floor, the smell of sand and ozone rich in his nose. A man he doesn’t recognize stands before him, hands on his hips, a look of perpetual disappointment on his round face. His clothes, traditional linens wrapped loose around his body, speak to Han’s sleep-addled mind of the men of Tatooine. His eyes, bright blue, set against the weather-darkened tan of his face --

“The first of three, huh?” Han slurs, stretching one arm up to pillow his head, propping it up enough to give him a proper view of the man standing over him. “You Luke’s dad?”

“His uncle,” the man says. “Raised him from birth.”

Uncle Owen, Han’s memory supplies, pulling from a conversation he overheard between Luke and Ben, scant hours after their jump to lightspeed, what feels like a lifetime ago. Killed by Imperial Stormtroopers, along with his wife. Left charred for Luke to discover, coming home from some errand or another, alone as he learned that he’d been orphaned on a planet of dust and sand.

“You have the same Force thing Luke’s got?” Han asks, remembering Kenobi’s vague explanation that he was using the Force like an afterlife commlink to interrupt Han’s sleep.

“I am a memory,” Uncle Owen says, “in part. Luke’s, of the last time he saw me alive.” His gaze slides over to the man sleeping beside Han, and softens. “We argued,” he says, quietly. “Luke wanted to join the Imperial Academy a year early. I denied him that freedom out of fear. Fear of his destiny. Fear of his past. Fear of his heritage, which brought him into my care.”

Han sighs, uncomfortable with the prospect of sharing in a stranger’s emotional outpouring. “Don’t think he’d’ve fit in very well at the Academy,” he says. “He took out one of their deadliest weapons, few years back. Helping his sister lead the rebellion against ‘em even now. Doing a pretty good job of it, too.”

Owen nods. “He was always strong-willed,” he says. “A happy child. Energetic. Loving. Never hesitated to stand up for his friends, even against the will of their parents. He had such _conviction,_ even as a boy. Knew what he believed was right and was willing to fight for it, no matter the cost to himself, to his freedom.” A memory of a smile warms his lips. “He spent more time grounded than free because of it before he learned to control himself, to watch what he said.”

 _He’d unlearned that by the time I met him,_ Han doesn’t say, though it takes effort. “Yeah,” he says, instead.

“We loved him, my wife and I,” Owen says. “He was ... difficult, in his teenage years. All boys are. We argued often. But I loved him, all the same. We both did. Beru wanted him to have his freedom. I wanted him to be safe.” His gaze drags slowly from Luke to Han, meeting Han’s eyes. “We were glad he’d gone out, when we realized we would be killed. Both of us. Sad to leave him on his own. Afraid for him.” A moment. “I’m glad to see now that he’s safe.”

 _Safe_ isn’t the word Han would use to describe them, tucked away on an old freighter on a moon surrounded by the debris of the weapon they just destroyed, Luke’s bionic hand resting on his chest, the weight of it a reminder of stories Han’s not yet heard from the months he spent away from the princess and the farm-boy, locked in the near-death limbo of carbon freeze.

“He’ll be all right,” he hears himself say. “Luke’s tough. Got a good head on his shoulders.”

Owen nods. “Look after him for us,” he says.

He’s gone before Han can promise that he will.

0101010101010

The second visitor reminds Han of a species of frog, native to Corellia, which -- when seasoned with the right spices and roasted over an open flame, just until cooked through -- could put to shame any of the other delicacies he’s sampled across the wide galaxies.

He knows better than to tell him -- it? -- that, though, waking to the sound of shuffling, to the rhythmic _tap tap tap_ of the frog-visitor’s cane against the floor of his bunk. He’s rolled onto his side in the precious minutes between Uncle Owen’s departure and this new disruption to his sleep, hardly needs to shift in order to watch the little creature creep across the floor, pulling itself with some difficulty into the chair Old Ben graced during his visit.

“Who’re you?” Han says, when the creature does little more than stare at him.

“Yoda, I am,” it says. “Great Jedi master, I was.”

Exactly what Han doesn’t need. “Han Solo,” he says. “Captain of the Millennium Falcon.”

“Know who you are I do,” Yoda says, his grasp of Basic harder to understand than Wookiee, as tired as Han is. “Come to advise you, have I.”

Han yawns and flexes his legs. Behind him, Luke sighs and rubs his forehead against Han’s back.

“Yoda,” Han says, his brain catching up, prodding him. “Hey yeah, wait. Luke was mumblin’ your name on Hoth.”

“Sent him to me, his former teacher did,” Yoda says.

“The old man,” Han says. “Ben.”

“Obi-Wan was he called,” Yoda says, thoughtfully. “Young student of mine he was, before the war. Sent young Skywalker to me, he did.”

“On Dagobah,” Han says.

Yoda dips his chin in a nod. “Told him to stay, we did. Train in the way of the Jedi, shield his thoughts he would learn. But choose another path, choose to leave he did. Unfinished he left his training. Very dangerous for a Jedi knight.” He narrows his eyes at Han, almost accusingly. “Like his father, he is.”

Han thinks of Owen, bright blue eyes shining with unshed tears as he looked down on Luke’s sleeping form, the family resemblance striking as he spoke gently of Luke’s childhood, of the love he and his wife felt for the boy grown now into a man. Remembers, just before the words make it out of his mouth, that Owen was Luke’s uncle. Brother to Luke’s father.

“Don’t know anything about his old man,” he says, “but I _do_ know that Luke’s a good man. Doin’ his best to be a good Jedi, too, for all that his teachers keep dying. I’m guessing you did, ‘s why you’re here.”

The expression on Yoda’s face tells him he’s hit a nerve. Han cracks a grin at him in response, props himself up on his elbow, chin cupped in his hand.

“Wary of the Dark Side he must be,” Yoda says. “Tasted its power, he has. Dominate his thoughts, his path, it must not.”

“Tell him that yourself,” Han grumbles. _“I_ think Luke’s doin’ just fine.”

He counts it as a victory that Yoda doesn’t argue.

0101010101010

The third visitor is not, as Han’s believed the others to be, a dream. He’s a _nightmare._

He presses Han immobile against the thin mattress of the bunk with little more than a gesture, the rhythmic, mechanical sound of his breathing filling Han’s senses with the need to run, to escape, flight over fight screaming from every atom of Han’s being. Han watches him, terrified, as he crosses the room, close enough that the billow of air swept around his cloak breathes a whisper over Han’s face, raising gooseflesh in its wake.

Han fights it, for all that his struggle doesn’t yield much beyond a sheen of sweat on his brow, his heart thudding against his ribs. _It’s a dream,_ he tells himself. _Move enough and you’ll wake up from it. You’ll wake Luke and he’ll wake you up. Just. **Move.**_

“Skywalker,” Vader says, his voice like poison sliding across Han’s thoughts, thick and dark. “He is brave and strong. Like his sister. Both what I was not, what I could not bring myself to be.”

Han draws a breath, straining against the pressure on his chest, his windpipe. “Luke,” he wheezes.

“You are weak, and a coward,” Vader says, but the pressure relents some, air rushing into Han’s lungs when he pulls at it, open-mouthed. “Dependent on those around you for salvation. Incapable of fighting for others without their help.”

He says _help_ like it’s a curse. Han sucks in another breath. Glares at him.

“Yeah, well,” he says, his brain scrambling against the rising tide of panic, looking for something coherent to say. Nothing surfaces.

“He will not tell you of his struggle against the Emperor,” Vader says. “He guards it, like an injury. It will hurt him, draw him to the Dark Side.” He points a finger at Han, and Han flinches. “You _must not_ let it.”

“Me?” Han says. “What could I --”

Beside him, Luke stirs. _“Father,”_ he murmurs into the fabric of Han’s shirt.

The pressure on Han’s chest relents entirely, his body almost buoyant in its absence. He pushes himself up, putting himself between Luke and Darth Vader, his heart pounding in his chest, mind racing to the distance between the bed and his gun-belt, the blaster he _knows_ won’t work against Vader’s powers but would love dearly to have in his hand, regardless, one leg folded under him, poised to launch him at --

Nothing.

The room is exactly as it has been all night and yet different, all at once, the light at the far corner brighter and murkier, the table scattered still with sabacc cards and empty glasses, the empty bottle of Corellian ale lying on its side, just where Vader had been standing, where Owen stood hours before. Han’s gun-belt sits draped over the back of the chair, his vest and trousers and boots in a heap on the floor beside it. 

“Han?”

Luke’s voice is rough with sleep, his hand warm when he places it on Han’s elbow, the careful touch of a soldier reaching out to his fellow man who has seen and survived the horrors of war. Han looks at him after one last sweep of the room. Murmurs _hey, Luke_ when Luke considers him, concern in his eyes.

“You all right?” Luke says.

Han nods, sagging back onto the mattress. “Bad dream,” he says.

“Vader.”

Han does his best to cover his surprise. He’s too tired to tell if he’s successful. “Yeah.”

“And Yoda,” Luke says. “Uncle Owen.”

“How --”

“Ben.” Luke pushes himself up, runs his fingers through his hair. He looks older, cast in the dim light of the room, memory lining his face like fractures under the skin. “I saw them.”

“Look, it was just a dream,” Han says. “Probably the ale. You know Corellians. Never know when enough’s enough, especially not when brewin’ a good --”

“You were talking to them,” Luke says. “I heard you.”

Han sighs through his nose. “You were droolin’ on my shoulder, kid,” he says.

“I was _concentrating.”_

“You snored.”

Luke looks at him, finally. His face is a little darker than it was, before. Blushing, Han realizes, a giddy bubble of laughter rising in his chest at the shadow of the old Luke, _his_ Luke, coming through, just a little.

“You wouldn’t know what Uncle Owen looks like,” Luke points out. “I would. You never met him.”

“How d’you know what I dreamed looks anything like him?” Han says.

Luke gives him a look not unlike the look Leia gives him when he’s intentionally being a pain in the ass. It’s unnerving, the resemblance between the two of them, most evident when they’re annoyed. “Tall,” Luke says. “Your height, probably. Heavy-set. Greying hair, scraggly beard. Blue eyes, like mine.” A moment. “Like my father’s.”

“Dunno about that last bit,” Han says, happy to have a bolt-hole built into the conversation and happier still to put it to good use. “What about it? You saying gettin’ you drunk gives me a peep-show into your Force-dreams or something?”

“No,” Luke says, shaking his head. “Maybe.” He rubs one of his eyes with the pad of his thumb. “I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t drink.”

“Life’s no fun if you spend it sober all the time,” Han says, on reflex. Yoda’s words come back to him, like a murmur. _Shield his thoughts he would learn._ “Probably gets easier once you get more of the Jedi thing under your belt, anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“Probably not so bad when you’re not exhausted, too.”

“Probably.”

Totally unconvincing. Han lies back down, tugs at Luke’s arm until Luke gives in and stretches out beside him once again. “Probably wouldn’t be so exhausted if you didn’t have so many ghosts chatterin’ at you when you’re trying to sleep, either,” he says. He reaches for Luke, hesitating only a second before dropping his hand to Luke’s forearm, stroking it gently when Luke sighs and drapes it across Han’s belly, a wordless acknowledgement of pleasure. “They, uh. Show up a lot? When you’re trying to sleep?”

Luke shakes his head, blonde hair scrubbing against Han’s shoulder. “Usually when I’m in danger,” he says. “I saw Ben on Hoth. Before you found me. He told me to go to Yoda, to learn.”

“Yeah, you were talkin’ to him when I found you,” Han says. “Thought you were just hallucinating. You were in pretty bad shape.”

“I saw him on Dagobah, too,” Luke says, after a moment filled only with the quiet sound of his breathing. “He told me to stay, to train. I disobeyed him.”

“Made a choice for yourself,” Han corrects. “Nothin’ wrong with that, Luke.”

“I saw you and Leia,” Luke continues, as if Han hadn’t spoken. “On Bespin. I saw what they were doing to you.” He swallows, his hand contracting in the fabric of Han’s shirt. “I wanted to help.”

 _And all you managed to do was fall into a trap,_ Han thinks.

“Yes,” Luke says. “I played right into Vader’s hands. And afterwards, I was different. Tainted.”

 _Wary of the Dark Side he must be,_ Han’s memory supplies. _Tasted its power he has. Dominate his thoughts, his path, it must not._

“I try not to let it,” Luke says, “but it did, it does. Even when I’m trying.” His voice cracks. He pushes himself up, away from Han. Folds his arms over his knees, his face against them.

Han sits up as well, puts his hand on Luke’s back, feels the knobs of Luke’s spine, smooth and even under the black fabric of his tunic. Blinks against the dullness of sleep weighing his thoughts. “Luke, you --”

“I don’t have anyone to train me,” Luke says, without lifting his head. “I -- I can’t be the last. Not like this. I turned, Han. Twice. Once because I wanted to save you and Leia, because that’s what I knew. But then after, when I knew about Vader, when I saw the power I could have, if I turned. When I knew I could use it to strike the Emperor down, and I thought that would help us, if _I_ were the one leading the Imperial Fleet. But it would take too long, I wouldn’t be able to save you. Any of you. You’d all die, and that -- I made a choice. I was selfish. And my father, he saved me. He died to save me from that choice. And now there’s _no one left and I don’t know what to do.”_

Han swallows the half-dozen questions parading across his tongue, awkwardly patting Luke’s back instead. A thought is doing its level best to wind around to the fore of Han’s consciousness, even as he focuses on offering comfort to the man in his bed without resorting to alcohol or sex, his preferred sources of escape. It’s a bad thought. Dragging across his mind like broken glass, the pieces coming together in a picture he doesn’t want to see.

“Yes,” Luke says, almost a whisper, when Han realizes the truth, puts it all together like a chemical reaction blowing up in his face. “He was my father.” A moment. “No, he wasn’t good. Not until the very last. After the Emperor was gone. When he was dying. And then he saved me, Han. He ... he _loved_ me. Because I am his son.”

 _And it’s tearing you apart,_ Han thinks. 

“It is,” Luke whispers.

“You just pickin’ all this outta my head or something?” Han says when Luke breathes out a dry breath. Not crying. Maybe close to it. Hard to tell.

“Yeah. I am.”

“Do you _have_ to do that?”

Luke shakes his head. “I shouldn’t,” he says. “You can’t -- you can’t protect yourself. From me.”

“Don’t think that’ll be necessary, kid,” Han says. “I ain’t afraid of you.”

“You should be.”

“Funny, they said the same when I took on a Wookiee as first mate on my ship,” Han says, pleased when Luke turns to look at him, brow furrowed, temporarily distracted from the anguish tensing the muscles under Han’s palm. “Yeah, can you imagine? I mean, you were a little shy around Chewie at first, mostly ‘cause you were a brat and he thought you could do with some discipline, but afraid? Of that big fuzzball?”

Luke doesn’t quite laugh, but the humor of the thought is there, Han can feel it, radiating off of Luke like bodyheat. “People change,” he says softly, his mood sobering once again. “I’ve changed.”

Han reaches for him, touches him on the chin. Draws him close enough to kiss, just softly. “Look,” he says, “I’ll get Chewie to pull one’a your arms off if I think you’re doing too much changing. All right? So until you’ve got a Wookiee rearranging your parts, you’re doin’ okay. Promise.”

 _And if you’re not around to stop me?_ projects across his mind, as clear as the voices in his dreams.

Han kisses him again. “Then I’ll show up like one of your haints and bug you ‘til you’re too tired to do anything, good or bad,” he says. “Promise.”

0101010101010

He’s dragging the following morning, feeling the hours of sleep he didn’t get the night before. His only consolation is that Luke doesn’t look much better, the combined lack of sleep and emotional turmoil and what Han can’t entirely ignore as telltale signs of a hangover giving him dark circles under his eyes, glaringly obvious on his pale skin, his step noticeably less controlled and fluid as he joins Han for breakfast, a cup of strong herbal tea in his hand.

“Eating helps,” Han tells him, watching Luke nurse his cup of tea in little sips.

“No,” Luke croaks. “Nothing solid.”

“C’mon, you didn’t have _that_ much to drink.”

Luke takes a few sips. “My physiology is different from yours,” he says, the words clean and obviously practiced. A pitiful attempt at scraping together his dignity.

“Yeah, you’re pretty obviously not Corellian,” Han says. “Had my first taste’a good home-brewed firewater when I was eleven, and let me tell ya, it was more’n you had yesterday by a considerable amount, and after _that_ \--”

_“Han.”_

“Yeah?”

“Shut up. Leia’s coming.”

Han closes his mouth in a hurry. Leans back in his chair, one arm slung across the back of Luke’s, hoping that his sprawling posture will cover the jolt of fear he gets whenever he’s done something he knows will actually _earn_ him the princess’s wrath. “Your brother’s a sad drunk,” he announces when Leia comes over and pins him with the kind of glare that clears the table next to them of junior officers, none of them accustomed to the awesome power of Leia Organa in a bad mood. “Could’a told me that, if you knew. Wasted good Corellian ale on him, just to watch him lose at sabacc and cry about it.”

“I didn’t _cry,”_ Luke mumbles around the rim of his teacup.

“Looked like you were close to it,” Han concedes.

Leia sits across the table from them, her look blessedly a little less thunderous at the sound of Luke's voice. She gives Han a wary look, then softens, reaching across the table to touch her brother’s hand. “You okay?” she says. “Last night, I thought I -- felt something. I was worried about you.”

Luke nods, turning his hand so that he can wrap it around hers in a gentle embrace. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m fine.”

They look at each other in silence just a breath too long. Holding a conversation to which Han isn’t invited, Han realizes, his hackles going up without any real temper behind it, really. _That’s rude,_ he thinks as loudly as he can, looking directly at Luke as he thinks it. Cracks a grin when Luke’s expression falters, a smile spreading across the younger man’s lips like sunlight from behind the clouds as he drops his head in a chuckle.

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding a bit of it.

“I’m not,” Leia says.

Han snorts and lets it go.

**Author's Note:**

> A few points of interest:
> 
> > This was originally shamelessly -- _shamelessly_ \-- based in the loosest sense off _[A Christmas Carol](http://literature.org/authors/dickens-charles/christmas-carol/index.html)_ by Charles Dickens before it took over and decided to be a long rambling picture of what I see when I watch _Return of the Jedi._
> 
> > Mark Hamill is 5’9”. Harrison Ford is 6’1”. For some reason, until I bothered to look it up, I thought they were really close in height. Also, Mark Hamill is still distractingly pretty, where do I queue up to pet his hair.
> 
> > Years ago, there was a fill on the Phoenix Wright kinkmeme where Maya channeled Gregory Edgeworth so that Phoenix could ask for his blessing to be in a relationship with Miles. I think that may’ve been sitting in my subconscious when parts of this story rolled around.
> 
> > I really, really, _really_ want Aunt Beru to show up as a surprise!Jedi at some point and murder the shit out of the big mean Imperials who bullied her sweet little Luke. I know that isn’t going to happen, but.
> 
> > I don’t care what color Anakin Skywalker’s eyes were, the prequels traumatized me and convinced me that I didn’t like _Star Wars,_ so they don’t count. In my mind, Anakin’s eyes are blue, and that’s where Luke gets his beautiful baby blues. No take-backs.
> 
> > The notion that I could make an argument that Darth Vader and Jesus Christ have a lot in common is so ridiculously hilarious to me that I might actually have to think about it. Probably during staff meeting tomorrow. See if I don’t.
> 
> > Haints showing up in the middle of the night is no joke. We have them in my house from time to time. They’re fine, so long as they stay on the far side of the room. When they get curious and show up RIGHT next to my side of the bed? That’s just not okay. At all.
> 
> > I was in the middle of sewing a skirt inspired by Han Solo’s pants from Ep IV when this story crept across my mind and insisted on being typed up. I then went back to sewing my skirt, and my sewing machine promptly died. I am in mourning.
> 
> > I drowned my sorrows over my dead sewing machine with this fic and two solid hours on the treadmill. None of my FitBit friends like me anymore, which is really just too bad because one of them is my mother and another of them is married to me. I may die a lonely, lonely man and join my sewing machine in stalking Jedi knights and their smartass Corellian lovers in the middle of the night. Doesn’t sound so bad, really.
> 
> > OH and it's totally for FreshBrains, inspired by their hilariously sweet story [How I Wonder](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5742025), which I read a dozen times and, upon each reading, grinned like a happy drunken Jedi. I love that story.


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